The thing I ought to have done today is to keep a better eye on my timekeeping. Primarily because poor timekeeping made me miss my hair appointment yesterday, and talking too much landed me in the most horrendous rainstorm. So today I ought to have kept my chatting a little more under control but today there were no appointments just domestic admin and cooking.  Things that ought to be squeezed into the spaces in between lovely wide-ranging conversations. And squeezed in they were, which makes the ‘ought to’ somewhat irrelevant. But there are days like yesterday when I ought to have kept an eye on the time. Missing a hair appointment is really very thoughtless. What is even worse is that an hour or so later I was telling a friend I had lost track of time and missed an appointment. She looked at me in horror and said.

“Oh my goodness , I shouldn’t be here either. I ought to be at a community thing”

When I was younger I certainly thought ‘ought’ and indeed ‘should’ were words of diligence rather than desire,but now I feel more kindly towards it. Ought is a word used out of respect. I can be flimsy about my own time keeping but not when it affects other people.

I also really like the idea of an Oughtobiography. An epic tale of all the things I ought to have done. There may be more blogs on this topic…